page_title: Campos rupestres
section_title: Abiotic aspects
hierarchical_section_title: Campos rupestres / Abiotic aspects
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the soil taken at Chapada Diamantina, Bahia
context_page_description: The campo rupestre is a discontinuous montane subtropical ecoregion occurring across three different biomes in Brazil: Cerrado, Atlantic Forest and Caatinga. Originally, campo rupestre was used to characterize the montane vegetation of the Espinhaço Range, but recently this term has been broadly applied by the scientific community to define high altitudinal fire-prone areas dominated by grasslands and rocky outcrops.
context_section_description: Campo rupestre (sensu lato) occupies less than one percent of the Brazilian territory, 66,447km², and it is concentrated mostly in the states of Minas Gerais, Bahia and Goiás. This ecoregion consists of a series of relatively small and isolated grasslands and rocky outcrops mostly distributed in the Espinhaço Range in eastern Brazil, surrounded by lowland and montane forests. It also forms discontinuous enclaves in other mountain ranges, such as Mantiqueira Range, Serra dos Órgãos, Serra da Canastra, Serra do Caparaó, Chapada Diamantina and many others.
  Campo rupestre is found at elevations from 900 to 2,033 meters (2,952 to 6,670 ft) and is characterized by dry winters and wet summers, strong winds and high levels of irradiance.  The soil in this ecoregion is nutrient-poor, extremely shallow and young. The geological formation subtending this impoverished soil is ancient, stable, weathered and diverse; campo rupestre areas occur on quartzite, granite, migmatites, gneiss, metarenites, and itabirites. The soil composition represents a challenge for vegetation to establish; plants must overcome very low levels of P, high levels of Al (in some areas), acidity and low water retention (due to shallowness of the soil). Because of these conditions, the flora thriving in the campo rupestre has developed several adaptations, such as carnivory, C4 metabolism, superficial root systems (to absorb periodic rain water faster), underground storage, stomatal crypts, etc.
caption: Soil at Chapada Diamantina in Bahia
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